I keep trying to coax this sort of revelation out of my lefty friends, but many of them simply refuse to accept that Obama isn't perfectwonderfulmarvelous. I try to be kind. I realize I'm dealing with people who are totally brainwashed. You have to let them down easily.

I think mass deprogramming will be necessary, and I'm not kidding about that.

Andrew Sullivan: "I know the president is not against all wars - just dumb ones. But could any war be dumber than this - in a place with no potential for civil society, wrecked by totalitarianism, riven by tribalism, in defense of rebels we do not know and who are clearly insufficient to the task?"

Well, if you had listened to that speech Monday night, you would have heard him claiming Presidential powers beyond anything George W., or even Cheney, evr laid claims to, in between all that jazz about "the international community."

Sullivan has a point: no way that Obama is this dumb. Obama is only screwing up if you cannot see that Obama has just, in plain sight, established a new tradition of UN authorized wars using loaned US Military assets, and done this as if Congress has been abolished. Plus the artificial oil scarcity for a long civil war quagmire pumps up those Soros Brazilian assets that Obama was off working for the day that he did this attack. After Soros has sold his Brazilian assets, then the same con can be repeated elsewhere. That in a nutshell is the USA's national interest here...I mean Obama/Soros's interest...in a Libyan clusterfuck.

All I can say is after Sullivan turned on Boooosh, look what happened…Obama and all of us bystanders had better pray that Michelle or Melia don’t get pregnant, because Inspector Sullivan is relentless when he’s on a case involving a uterus.

Insta has an article with the best description of this mess - Wilsonian.

Woody sent troops, mostly Marines IIRC, all over the Caribbean basin and couldn't wait to get us into WWI (after running on the slogan, "He Kept Us Out of war", in 1916).

Granted, Little Zero was hoping for some Rally Round the Flag effect to help his poll numbers, and that's probably how the Furies talked him into it, but Andy's ruined boycrush is symptomatic of the bad news for the Demos in '12.

I'm all for dumping on the execrable Sullivan, who in fact should be more ignored than dumped on. But I'm failing to se the applicability of the "rube" narrative on this issue. It seems to me the "rube" narrative applies to those who imagined a man who had never held a real job would be even marginally competent as president. It seems applicable to all the "moderates" who failed to notice that Obama is a lifetime movement radical who wants to weaken as much of what America is as possible in his first term. Those were readily apparent to anyone paying attention before the election.

But I do not see what the hints were that Obama would be a war, er, I mean a kinetic military action monger. Am I missing something?

If only there was someone who would have, could have! told all of us before the election that it was dangerous and stupid to let this guy with no real-world experience and a history of saying anything to get elected near the White House.

But could any war be dumber than this - in a place with no potential for civil society, wrecked by totalitarianism, riven by tribalism, in defense of rebels we do not know and who are clearly insufficient to the task?

Well, you have to give him some credit--that's a pretty apt description of the situation.

Partisan glee aside, the US is now faced with quite a problem. If we fail and Qaddafi survives, the other dictators in the region - if not the rest of the world - will follow his approach.

Excellent point. For someone who is touted as intelligent, it sure seems like Obama walked into this with as much consideration as I demonstrate when deciding between ordering kung pao or General Tsao’s chicken. So while he insists we’re not actually targeting Q, he may as well because we picked sides and at this point we picked the losers. Here’s the kicker too: The left always touted that Saddam wasn’t a supporter of al qaeda. Well neither was Colonel Q but I betcha he becomes one should be survive this rebellion, which if we don’t actively go after him, he probably will.

Obama's spent 550 million on Libya and counting. Where are the union thugs? The US has approved the Libyan rebels selling oil to the West, now that the rebels set up a Western government friendly Central Bank. LOL. Obama is Wall Streets and a Banksters best friend.

Victor Eminita wrote: Those [traits of Obama] were readily apparent to anyone paying attention before the election.

There's a perfectly good English word for this phenomenon which has sadly gone out of common usage, folly. Dispassionate observers of the human scene since Thucydides have been dumbstruck by the ability of otherwise intelligent and capable people to deceive themselves, and it is self deception that is at work here. Though we yell "Hey, Rube!" in jest and derision we should remember that the rubes and the carnies are the same people.

My guess is he'll latch onto Huckabee. His rebounds are getting farther and farther into the politically absurd, so Huckabee (even though he's a former fatty) fits the bill. (The Huck is also one of those "Government knows best" types that Sullivan seems drawn to.)

Another option would be Bloomberg, but since Sullivan probably knows Bloomberg personally, I wouldn't put much money on it.

WV: "bughee" -- damned word verification program is developing a sense of humor.

Rand Paul:"I was happy to see that Newt Gingrich has staked out a position on the war, a position, or two, or maybe three. I don’t know. I think he has more war positions than he’s had wives. [...]

There’s a big debate over there. Fox News can’t decide, what do they love more, bombing the Middle East or bashing the president? It’s like I was over there and there was an anchor going, they were pleading, can’t we do both? Can’t we bomb the Middle East and bash the president at the same time?"

Obama didn't campaign against war. He didn't even campaign against dumb wars. He campaigned on getting out of the won war in Iraq in order to commit more war in Aghanistan.

And Afghanistan was, and is, an incredibly dumb war.

What Sullivan knows, for he certainly knows his own archives, is that Iraq was a smart war. It was a much bigger war than we initially conceived; it was argued, initiated, and fought on the basis of terrible intelligence; it was horribly mismanaged especially when Bush was trying to minimize casualties; yet the strategic justifications for it were profound.

I have no idea who this Sullivan is. He sounds like another Robert Shrum, always hitching his wagon to an anchor. Seeing as how I quit reading the propaganda papers, is it safe to guess he's one of them?

Andrew Sullivan, like history, repeats first as farce, then as tragedy.

According to Marx history repeats itself, first as tragedy, than as farce... not the other way around. However, in Sullivan's case it's farce, and then more farce. The tragedy is everybody knows it except Sullivan.

The issue is some conservative-TP types think Sullivan's a, yikes, "leftist," when he's not. He's used as like an example of decadent liberalism or some BS, when he's a rightwing queer Tory. sort of Margaret Thatcher dressing as a man.

Like most TPsters you don't really know what you're fighting. Maybe instead of the usual MSM pundits link to Alex Cockburn or Zizek or Naomi Klein. Not that one always agrees. But that's yr real enemy, teabuggers.

Cockburn and company, the whole editorial staff of Mother Jones, their ilk at the Democratic Underground, and you, J, aren't enemies. They and you are figures of fun -- a troupe of sideshow freaks and itinerent clowns whose earnest antics are gigglesome to read and hear.

While it's true you may fancy yourself to be an enemy, there is a certain, shall we say, minimum level of probity required that you simply cannot achieve.

Once we began to see our imagesReflected in the mud and even dust,'Twas disillusion upon disillusion.We were lost piecemeal to the animals,Like people thrown out to delay the wolves.Nothing but fallibility was left us.

The vain man does not wish so much to be prominent as to feel himself prominent; he therefore disdains none of the expedients for self-deception and self-outwitting. It is not the opinion of others that he sets his heart on, but his opinion of their opinion.

And I'm sorry to have to say that, but it's true. (Not that being a Republican is proof against it since Bush the First operated the same way.) What it is about is the belief in military constraint.

Said that way it doesn't sound bad, right?

Belief in military constraint, in sanctions, in gestures of support that make a moral statement, and all coupled with a corresponding belief that *caring* matters most.

It would be a doctrine if someone actually thought about it enough to form one. The small war... now known as kinetic military involvement. Lets just do a little bit, because a little bit will be enough.

Look at who protested that Iraq wasn't supposed to take so long. Look at who voted to invade but ran out of resolve no more than a year and half later. The corollary to that is that Iraq only took so long because Bush and other neocon warmongers *wanted* it to.

So Obama can do a short war, a small war, just like Clinton could in Bosnia and Somalia, just like Bush the First could leave Iraq without resolving anything. Air support with no risks to American lives to turn domestic politics, and something good will happen because our motives are pure.

"But I do not see what the hints were that Obama would be a war, er, I mean a kinetic military action monger. Am I missing something?"

"Obama had no track record, so where was the evidence that he wouldn't be one?"

Obama tried to position himself as a military tough guy during the election in order to persuade the pro-Iraq-war middle, the people who would have run in the face of irresponsible peace-nik rhetoric, to vote for him.

He threatened to go into Pakistan... I mean, Pah-kistan. Beat his chest soundly over that.

Now if that was "evidence" or not is up for grabs. The anti-war left that made up his base for Hope and Change simply decided he was lying.

The problem with that admirable sentiment, Freeman, is that because so many jobs--both brawn and brain--have been exported overseas over the past couple-so of decades and there's so little business interest in First America values, there's almost no toe-hold to be had in the thin layer of sand left behind in the wake of all the exporting we've done.

We're weak, now, Freeman, and I'd argue most especially because of all the power of small-l labor we've exported, not to mention the huge amount of dollars that have followed.

On what foundation, exactly and precisely and practically, are you expecting us to launch great exports of example from?

Even if by some miracle it turns out to be possible to wrench this country from the grip of too large--and, far more important, too intrusive--government, that still will leave us with an even higher, harder mountain to climb.